Tag Archives: quantum computing

Every new technology has the capacity to inspire wonder and fear. One Swiss scientist, Conrad Gessner, warned in the 1500’s that the data overload from the printing press would be “confusing and harmful” to the mind. Similar concerns have been voiced about every conceivable advancement, from the train and car to computers and social media. The truth is that technology ...

At any given time, a technology or two captures the zeitgeist. A few years ago it was social media and mobile that everybody was talking about. These days it’s machine learning and block chain. Everywhere you look, consulting firms are issuing reports, conferences are being held and new “experts” are being anointed. In a sense, there’s nothing wrong with that. ...

Quantum Superposition and Quantum Entanglement are hard ideas to accept because they run counter to what we experience in normal life. Yet it is exactly these ideas that IBM is betting on now. To help me wrap my head around it all, I spent several hours talking to Charlie Bennett, an IBM Fellow considered to be one of the founders of quantum information theory.

Competition between Google and IBM is an unusual business rivalry because the two rarely compete in the same markets or for the same customers. In truth, it is a rivalry for technical rather than market dominance. Yet much like Apple vs. Microsoft, it's likely to determine much about how technology shapes our world.

American industry has a rich heritage of top-notch corporate labs. Bell Labs created not only the transistor, but also other fundamental breakthroughs, such as the laser and information theory. PARC, developed much of the technology we associate with modern computers, such as the mouse and the graphical user interface. Both labs have attained mythical status and rightly so. Yet IBM ...

Is it possible to predict the future? Apparently, Richard Feynman could. He dreamed up some of the today’s most exciting technologies, like nanotech and quantum computing, decades ago. Moreover, these weren’t mere daydreams or flashes of inspiration; he foresaw how they would actually work, what problems would have to be overcome, etc.